Handball: Berlin Foxes want a farewell trophy

It is not a hollow statement when the Handball Bundesliga is described as the strongest league in the world. The Final4 in the European League this weekend in Hamburg can be used as further proof of this statement. We don’t even want to talk about the semi-finals in the Champions League that are coming up two weeks later, for which two German clubs, SC Magdeburg and THW Kiel, qualified. First up are the decisive games in the second most important European Cup, which was known as the EHF Cup until 2020. In addition to Dinamo Bucharest, there will be three German teams on the roster: Rhein-Neckar-Löwen, SG Flensburg-Handewitt and Füchse Berlin.

The Berliners will not only be participants in the final tournament, but also the defending champions of this competition. They won the cup for the third time last year after 2015 and 2018. But this time it won’t be a sure-fire success. After all, the people of the capital have only been able to really concentrate on this task in the last few days. Before that, there was still an important task in the Bundesliga: Even if the fight for the German championship against SC Magdeburg is as good as lost, last weekend with the 28:25 win at Hannover-Burgdorf it was important to finally win for the Champions League to qualify. Despite all their love for the European League, the Berliners longed to finally compete in the premier class again after twelve years.

As a result, things were a little wilder with the foxes these days. »The victory in Hanover means we can no longer be pushed out of second place in the table, and the Champions League is of course now a huge topic for us. There is a huge amount of joy in the entire club,” said Berlin coach Jaron Siewert, looking ahead to the coming weekend, almost apologetically, before adding: “We have prepared well for Hamburg in the last few days, because the cup is supposed to be in Berlin remain,” as Siewert emphasized. However, the Rhine-Neckar Lions are likely to have something against that in the semi-finals this Saturday.

The otherwise rather reserved Füchse coach was really enthusiastic about Hamburg: “We are taking a lot of tailwind and a lot of positive emotions with us from last weekend. We are defending champions and have invested a lot in the European Cup season. Especially after the last win in Nantes, it was clear to us that we would do everything we could for the players who were leaving us – led by Hans Lindberg and Marko Kopljar ​​- to send them off with a title.

On the other hand, the opponent from Mannheim only suffered two defeats in the group phases like Berlin and otherwise went from win to win. Flensburg-Handewitt only lost once there. The men from the fjord then collapsed in the quarter-final second leg with 28:29 against the Swedish runner-up IK Sävehof. Before that, however, they had clearly won the first leg and safely qualified for the Final4.

Only the North Germans’ surprising 28:29 Bundesliga defeat at the foot of the Wartburg against Eisenach recently caused their Danish coach Nicolej Krickau some worries. In response to the unstable season, the Flensburg team are bringing back their long-time player Anders Eggert from the summer as a replacement for assistant coach Mark Bult.

The Flensburgers have to compete in their semi-final against Dinamo Bucharest, who lost twice to the Berlin Füchse in the preliminary round. The Romanians are still quite confident, as their Hungarian competitor Miklós Rosta said: “We’re going to Hamburg to win. I see real opportunities for us.” So it can be exciting on the Alster, as all teams are confident of winning the cup. Berlin manager Bob Hanning will still hope to have to move the existing trophies together in his own trophy cabinet to make room for the fourth.